In a special media event held today, Apple previewed the next-generation operating system for its iPhone and iPod touch mobile devices. In addition to opening up lots of new functionality for developers, users will also be pleased with new additions and more polish.

The event started with an introduction from Apple's Marketing Manager for iPod and iPhone, Greg Joswiak. He detailed some very impressive numbers concerning the iPhone OS ecosystem. 17 million iPhones and some 13 million iPod touches have been sold in the last two years, for a total of over 30 million devices running iPhone OS. There are currently over 50,000 registered app developers, 60 percent of which have never developed for any mobile platform. The App Store currently has over 25,000 apps available, resulting in over 800 million downloads to date.

Next, Senior Vice President of iPhone Software Engineering Scott Forstall came on the stage to detail some of the features and the over 1,000 new APIs available to developers. Developers now have a sanctioned way to sell additional content directly from an app, such as additional levels for a game or e-books for a reader app. Like the App Store, Apple handles all the logistics and keeps a 30 percent cut. Free apps, however, cannot offer this functionality. "Free apps remain free," said Forstall.

iPhone OS will now be able to use Bluetooth for connectivity to other iPhones. Apple has implemented Bonjour auto-discovery and peer-to-peer networking via Bluetooth with no complicated pairing required. This will allow apps to communicate to each other and transfer data. Though the exact mechanisms aren't know, Forstall offered an example of enabling head-to-head gameplay without requiring a WiFi network.

Devices will also be able to communicate with external peripherals plugged in to the dock connecter via a standard protocol. Several examples were given, such as controlling an external speaker set's EQ, or communicating with a medical device to gather data. Further, the communication is also enabled via Bluetooth as well, so it won't require docks or cables. Hooray for wireless headphones!

Finally, the push notification feature that was supposed to appear in the iPhone OS 2.0 update will be making its debut in 3.0. Admitting that Apple is "late on this one," Forstall said, "We had to complete rearchitect the server for push notifications." Third-party servers can send text or sound notifications to Apple's server, which then pushes them to a user's iPhone.

Forstall said Apple prefers this approach to allowing background processes because of battery life. The company's testing with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices showed an 80 percent decrease in standby battery life when using background processes. Push notifications, on the other hand, only resulted in a 23 percent decrease.

Forstall also briefly mentioned some other API additions, including giving developers access to the iPhone's proximity sensor, a user's iPod library, streaming video and audio via HTTP (even through firewalls), system-wide Data Detectors (rumored to be coming to Snow Leopard as well), and even built-in VoIP APIs. A particularly useful new API allows developers to call up a drop-down sheet for sending an email without having to quit the current app and launch the Mail app.

Demos, demos

Forstall then introduced a lengthy series of developers who demoed some of the new functionality in their upcoming apps (or updates to current apps). Meebo demoed a chat client, EA and ngmoco demoed games with some innovative new interaction, and Johnson&Johnson's LifeScan showed off an app that can track blood sugar readings for diabetics. ESPN demoed an app that takes advantage of push notifications to alert users of their favorite team's scores, and Oracle showed enterprise software leveraging push notifications to alert sales staff of low product stock at retailers.

Finally, Forstall detailed some of the "over 100 new features" designed for users. Probably the biggest is a system-wide cut and paste ability, which Apple has been working on to come up with a good UI. Double-clicking a word in text will activate a cut/copy/paste popup. Two icons appear for dragging around a selection. Double tapping in an empty space brings up the popup to allow pasting. The Photos app now lets users select multiple photos for pasting into an e-mail, and a system-wide "shake to undo" feature has also been added. Cocoa Touch has APIs so developers can use these features in their apps as well.

The SMS app has been renamed "Messages," and it now supports MMS messages for sending and receiving photos, contact cards, audio files, and location data in addition to text messages. The app also supports forwarding and deleting individual messages instead of deleting all messages from a particular sender.

A new Voice Memos app is included for recording and editing audio. The app can use the built-in mic or an external mic for recording. Recordings can be edited and then shared via e-mail or MMS. The Calendar app gains support for Exchange, CalDAV, and .ics format external calendars. And an updated Stocks app gains access to financial news stories and more detail about individual stocks (yay?).

Perhaps even more useful is a system-wide search function based on Spotlight. Individual apps, including the supplied Mail, iPod, Calendar, and Notes, include their own search abilities, which can be added to third-party apps. But with a flick to the left on the homescreen, a user can do a Spotlight search for items anywhere on the device, including music, movies, calendar appointments, e-mails, contacts, Safari bookmarks, and even applications. Forstall mentioned that when "having over 100 apps on a phone, search is useful for this."

Rounding out some of the mentioned feature additions: Notes sync via iTunes (finally, productivity mavens rejoice!), shake to shuffle in iPod, auto-logins for WiFi hotspots, stereo Bluetooth, landscape viewing and typing in Mail and other apps, anti-phishing support in MobileSafari, extended Parental Controls, and support for more languages and improved alternate keyboards.

Joswiak came back on stage to wrap up the event. A beta of the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK is available today for all developers in the iPhone Dev Program. iPhone OS 3.0 will ship this summer and be available as a free update for all iPhones, including the original—however, some features, such as stereo Bluetooth, won't work on the older hardware. iPod touch users will again have to pay $9.95 to upgrade (damn that alleged Sarbanes-Oxley issue). This looks like a serious update, and both users and developers should be pleased with everything Apple has added. Be sure to keep an eye on Infinite Loop throughout the day for further detailed reports and commentary.